24th Cathayan Expeditionaries

[Mephistofeles]

Hi there folks, and welcome to my project log. Here within I will post pictures and ideas regarding my latest (and first really serious) army project, the 24th Cathayan Expeditionaries.

Basically, this is an Empire Horde Army, which is themed on Cathay. I will be using models from Perry Miniatures, and paint them in a redish colour scheme. The three first units are painted, and so is the first cannon, and pictures of them will be posted as soon as I get my hands on a camera.

Now this is going to be a 180-model army, so there is quite a lot to paint, and therefore I am dipping the army. For those of you who do not know what that is, dipping is when you paint the models without highlighting or shading, and then dip it in a laquer of sorts so that they become shaded and high-lighted without you having to do it yourself. With this method I paint 6 models in about an hour, and you can judge about the quality yourselves when I post the pictures.

The army will when finished include 90 spearmen, 40 Free Company, 20 Greatswords, 20 Handgunners, 2 Cannons, 2 Captains on Pegasuses, one mounted BSB and one Wizard Lord. They will be bought and finished in the following order:

30 spearmen
10 Handgunners+10 Free Company+1 Cannon and Crew
30 Spearmen
10 Handgunner+10 Free Company+1 Cannon and Crew
20 Greatswords+10 Free Company
30 Spearmen
10 Free Company+All the heroes.

I buy them in smaller portions and finish that portion, that is the only way for me to cope with painting such a large army. The first two lines on the list are done, and the models for the third are on their way.

[Mephistofeles]

Also, for this army, I am going to make the whole "train" of supply wagons and camp followers. I will make quite a lot of wagons and carts loaded with supplies, trading goods, prisoners and god knows what. I am then going to mount the army together with the supply convoy on a Display Base, featuring a steppe landscape with a wide muddy road (The Silk Road) with the caravan on, and then the whole army positioned on one of the Caravans sides preparing to fend of a HobGoblin assault.

The train will include:

Carts and wagons with supplies
Wagons with prisoners of war
Walking slaves
Trade-carts full of goods to be traded in the west
Walking civilians and Merchants who follow the army west
Livestock such as cows, horses and sheep.
Pack Animals loaded with goods and supplies.

If you have any cool ideas for this caravan, please let me know! I'm going to buy the animals and civilians, and the carts, wagons, supplies and goods will I make myself out of Green Stuff and Plasticard.

[LordGoatee]

Sounds like a really great idea! Have you seen one of the recent White Dwarfs, there's some Cathayans in the back (made by some guy, in the UK one at least, dunno if it's in the WD over in 'Sverige')
Getting some inspiration from the historic Chinese, I thought of some ideas for the wagon train:
Fireworks! The Chinese built rockets to shoot at people- A cart full of 'em would look cool! (maybe some kind of gun to shoot them...)
A warrior priest... with monks robes. (If you're OK with green stuff) like the Tibetan monks.
YAKS! Big hairy ones, too. They would make good pack animals, in my opinion.

Anyway, I think this is a great idea for a really individual and fun army! I would love to play against such an army and I wish you all the luck in persevering with this fantastic idea for a project!

[Mephistofeles]

Yeaks are a fantastic idea! I'm not that good of a modeller, but I'll see if I can find some nice looking models from foundry, I'll get back to you on that.

Fireworks would also be really cool, especially now that the Empire seems to get a Rocket Launcher á la Chinese Style, so I might actually be able to use it in the game! I will at the very least take a cart full of 'em, I mean, the merchants travelling with the army are bound to make heaps of gold of off them if they sell them in the Empire or to some Goblins!

The Monk will be there, he will have long robes and a hat like Raven has in Mortal Kombat, if you know how he looks? He might actually be my Wizard Lord...

And again, YAKS! I must have some, wonderful idea!

And no, I have not seen the WD, I'll check. We have the same WD as the UK, so it should be there. I'll check.

[LordGoatee]

Sorry not to give a issue number- I've lost half my WD's
Anyway, I want to see how this idea turns out!
Have you converted the free company, cannon etc or painted any of 'em? I'd like to see some pictures!
(sorry that sounds a bit demanding doesn't it...)

[Mephistofeles]

I have painted the first two lines of the list, i.e. 10 Free Company, 10 Handgunners, 1 Cannon with crew and 30 Spearmen. I am now basing them, the peasants are done, the handgunners and perhaps spearmen will be done by sunday. I will try to get a picture of them during the week-end.

And on the subject of models, I am using models from www.Perry-Miniatures.com , the Samurai Range, they are damn good, and work perfectly well as Chinese as long as you stay away from the Samurais and ninjas, and use the basic infantry (Ashigaru). Which is what I do.

I have planned the conversion of the heroes on pegasuses, they will be knights on armoured horse, bought from Perry-miniatures, and with the wings from the Balthasar Gelt Pegasus attached.

[baphomael]

Those Perry Ashigaru still look a bit too "Japanese". You could always go the Nippon route, but there are plenty of companies that do ancient Chinese that might work better.

[Arhalien]

Those Perry models are nice! They are the first non-GW models I have seen that seem to be near GW quality.

Are they all metal?

CAn;t wait to see how this turns out eventually.

[Mephistofeles]

I think they look all cathay/chinese to me, at least if they are seen as early-mid Chinese infantry, which they are. I refuse to go the Nippon route, japanese stuff is just to lame.

I'll post pictures here now, of the first 30 spearmen, the first 10 handgunners and the first 10 Free Company Fighters. The Cannon will be done later this week.

[baphomael]

"I think they look all cathay/chinese to me, at least if they are seen as early-mid Chinese infantry, which they are. I refuse to go the Nippon route, japanese stuff is just to lame."

Good, it always niggles me when people begin talking about Cathay as if it is feudal Japan. Its like many forget there is an island to the east of Cathay called Nippon. If Cathay is like Japan then whats Nippon supposed to be?!
No, go with the Chinese route. At least it'll be less derivative than the Nipponophile "samurai-could-beat-a-full-plate-medieval-knight-katana-can-cut-through-a-treetrunk-in-a-single-swipe" type of thing

[Mephistofeles]

Yeah, I mean, Cathay is China, and Nippon is Japan, that's how I see it, and that's how it was meant to be. Cannons and infantry-hordes with broad-swords are cooler then samurais and katanas.

Side Note: Cathay was actually the late medieval European name for China. Nippon means Japan in Japanese...Point proven :P

[asmodai_dark86]

...and this is a fantasy game, so who cares?

Seriously though if you wanted to mash the two, it wouldnt really matter - make them look cool and jobs a good un

[Mephistofeles]

Well, that's why it was a side-note :P And I care...

Anyway, of course they can be mixed. In fact as I recall it Nippon is a province in Cathay, meaning that I can make a "chinese" army, and use samurais and ninjas in it if I want to. But I don't :P

[LordGoatee]

They look like good representations to me. Actually, if you look on page 202 of the new WH rulebook, they look very like the illustration there.

[Mephistofeles]

Here comes some pictures, not the best quality, but enjoy:

[Boss_Salvage]

Are they dipped? They look good all the same, and really awesome to see units of different, non-GW models. They rank up nicely too, though I'm guessing smaller in scale compared to Heroic Warhammer stuff. Keep up the good work!

- Salvage

[Mephistofeles]

They are dipped yes, I couldn't make myself paint over 200 models without dipping :P

How do you mean with "Heroic Warhammer Stuff" ? They are 28 mm, and done by the Perry Twins, who has made a lot of the current "real" warhammer models, so they are "the same" in scale and looks as the GW-stuff...

[Zodiac]

You might want to spray dullcoat over them though, they shine a little much..
As for the miniatures and the paintjob , COOL , I really like the
"inbred chinese peasants" and the spearmen are really awesome too!
Keep it up, but spray some coats

[Boss_Salvage]

Warhammer is 'heroic' 28mm scale, meaning that weapons, heads and hands tend to be exaggerated and out of proportion. The new Empire handgunners are a descent example of huge guns, and I'm sure you can think of more - like how people are always making 'true scale' space marines, lengthening legs and torsos to match their heads and arms. Go fig.

I'm not bashing the models at all, and perhaps I'm totally off in how these models stand up to current GW human models. They look good, and I'm just happy to see an army with some more proportionate limbs and heads

- Salvage

[Mephistofeles]

Zodiac: Why thank you!
I will look up this "dal-coat" of which you speak, might fix my shiny problems. Thanks for the tip!

Boss_Salvage: Ah, you mean like that, sorry, then I missunderstood you. The warhammer range has some serious fallos-problems with hands, weapons and heads, but I think that the warhammer-models which are designed by the Perry-Twins usually look proportional and "good", but yes, compared to most models these guys are too "Proportional".

I just got another 30 spearmen, I have trimmed them and will undercoat and start painting them friday as it looks now. When they are done, I will have 85 models done, whoopie, a third...